The invention relates to a fruit press, in particular a fruit press for juicing citrus fruit.
The document bearing the publication number DE 101 42 506 A1 has disclosed a fruit press which has an electric motor that drives a spindle onto which a pressing cone can be fitted. The spindle passes through a recess in a collection vessel. The collection vessel has a spout which is provided above the base in a side wall of the collection vessel. The collection vessel can be pivoted about a horizontal axis between two limit positions. In one limit position, the spout is above the base of the collection vessel. In a second limit position, the collection vessel has been pivoted in such a way that the spout is below the base, so that a liquid which has collected in the collection vessel can flow out of the collection vessel via the spout. The latching means enable the collection vessel to be fixed in the limit positions.
The pivotability of the collection vessel with respect to the spindle and the pressing cone gives rise to a number of problems. For example, to ensure the pivotability of the collection vessel with respect to the pressing cone, the distance between the base of the collection vessel and the pressing cone must be greater than is usually the case in the known fruit presses. This makes it easier for liquid to splash into the region beneath the pressing cone. However, this is the region in which the spindle is guided through the base of the collection vessel, and the spindle has to be sealed with respect to the edge of the recess in the base of the collection vessel. On account of the fact that the collection vessel can pivot with respect to the spindle, to allow this pivotability the recess has to be relatively large. This leads to increased sealing costs. An additional difficulty is that the liquid, as has already been explained, can more easily splash into the region below the pressing cone, i.e. into the region in which the spindle is guided through the base of the collection vessel. A further drawback of the known fruit presses is that the design of the fruit presses which have been disclosed hitherto often looks old-fashioned for technical reasons.
A further problem of the apparatus which is known from document DE 101 42 506 is that operation of the fruit press described in the document is complicated. Specifically, the fruit press is configured in such a way that the operator first of all juices the fruit and then pours the fruit juice into a glass or similar receptacle by pivoting the collection vessel in which the fruit juice has collected. The operator has to wait during the pouring operation until the receptacle holding the fruit juice is available for consumption. Alternatively, the operator could move the collection vessel into its pouring position before the pressing operation starts and then initiate the juicing operation. In this case, the fruit juice would be discharged into the receptacle via the collection vessel at the same time as it is being juiced. Although this would eliminate the waiting time, there is no guarantee that the user will remember to previously place the vessel in the inclined position every time. Moreover, it is not ensured that the user will remember to return the collection vessel into its horizontal position after it has been emptied, in order to prevent residues from dripping.
This is where the present invention comes in.
Therefore, the invention is based on the object of proposing a fruit press in which the fruit juice is passed out of the collection vessel into a receptacle at the same time as it is being pressed.
Furthermore, the invention is based on the object of proposing a fruit press having a pivotable collection vessel in which the problems of sealing spindle and collection vessel are solved or can be solved in a technically elegant way with an attractive design of the fruit press.